US President Donald Trump (L) chats with Russia's President Vladimir Putin as they attend the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on November 11, 2017. (MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AFP/Getty Images)

Right now in Washington there is no subject of greater interest than the Robert Mueller investigation into Russia and the Trump campaign. This obsession, punctuated by complex conspiracy theories, has had unhealthy consequences for both domestic and foreign policy.

The recent reports alleging that Trump's former national security advisor Michael Flynn had promised to "rip up" sanctions against Russia as a form of quid pro quo to Moscow raise very serious questions which cannot simply be dismissed as "fake news."

However, despite the very real concerns regarding this attack on American democracy, the developing investigation has also obscured the key policy dilemma of how we manage relations with Russia during a very challenging (and very dangerous) geopolitical moment.

It begins with recognizing some basic facts. In many ways, Moscow is at war with us. It is not a traditional military battle, but rather a limited, political war relying mostly on intelligence and subversion. But, because of the allegations of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia, we now have a president who has been politically boxed in, unable to take action. He is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.

Doing nothing should not be an option. This is the moment to summon a Reaganesque principled stance toward Russia – a trust-but-verify approach where we must operate on two separate tracks of containment and engagement.

Containment is in place and should be strengthened. Most agree that Russia must “pay a price,” as Senator John McCain put it, for meddling in the 2016 election, however this shouldn’t sacrifice all opportunities. The latest U.S. congressional sanctions and the post-Crimea international sanctions regime lock into place a whole set of restrictions on relations with the country, making it difficult to proceed on other fronts.

Any response should recognize who we are dealing with. Putin has been something of a magician – though he sits atop a kleptocracy and shrinking economy, he admirably manages to survive sanctions without major upheaval. Indeed, he scores diplomatic victories from the Mideast to Asia and Latin America. But Mark Galeotti, a Russia analyst and professor at the Institute of International Relations in Prague, believes that, rather than floundering, America should be “coolly angry” over Russian election meddling. That means not overreacting to Putin’s perceived strengths.

Speaking earlier this fall in an interview on Altamar, a foreign affairs podcast which I co-host with journalist Muni Jensen, Galeotti points out that, far from being the dominant player, Vladimir Putin has actually achieved remarkably little as a result of Donald Trump winning the 2016 election.

“We have to realize that [Putin] is not some kind of chess playing mastermind who has worked everything out six moves in advance,” says Galeotti. “This is their worst nightmare of a Trump presidency: An American president who literally changes policy overnight because of what he sees on Fox News, who doesn’t see any need to signal that change of policy in advance, and has a relatively low threshold for the use of violence.”

This point was again on display this week when Russia was banned by the International Olympic Committee from competing from the upcoming Winter Games after the discovery of a systematic doping conspiracy. This humiliating episode is only one of many recent schemes that have blown up in Vladimir Putin's face, producing the opposite outcomes from what they originally had wanted to achieve.

So although Russia has been effective in their attack on our democratic process, this cannot blind us to the fact that there are greater interests at stake. In other words, along with sanctions, clarity, and containment, engagement of the world’s second nuclear superpower can’t be simply shoved to the side -- even if their actions are the source of frustration, annoyance, and a certain level of threat.

Disarmament talks are the priority. An earlier Washington Post report highlighted deepening concerns among the arms control community that U.S.-Russia relations was deteriorating so badly that cracks are beginning to emerge on arms-control and nonproliferation frameworks.

“The ongoing tensions with Moscow have increased the risk that the nuclear and arms control architecture built up by Bush, Reagan and Obama will collapse,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “We have to be careful not to cut off our nose to spite our face because we are upset with Russia.”

Beyond arms control, engagement with Russia in the Mideast is another crucial area of cooperation. Trump has all but abdicated the U.S. role in the region, subcontracting these responsibilities to Israel and Saudi Arabia. When a meeting was held to decide the future fate of Syria in Sochi, Washington did not even have a seat at the table. This is bad policy for U.S. national security interests -- we need to get a lot more out of the Russians in the fight against Islamist extremism and ISIS, which has been unconvincing thus far. This won’t happen as long as they’re not pushing Iran toward more cooperative positions.

Relations with Russia should proceed on two tracks. On the engagement track, we need to cautiously redirect and identify a proactive, constructive agenda with Russia, allowing us enough room to work successfully on basic matters of national security, non-proliferation, and stability in areas and regions of common interest.

On the zero-tolerance track, we need to clearly and consistently identify where the guardrails are on this relationship. We must reinforce our commitments to NATO allies in the Baltics and Southeastern Europe. We must insist on an end to state-sponsored hacking and should ‘out’ Russia’s meddling. Russia must not be allowed to set the status quo in the occupied east of Ukraine (Defense Secretary Mattis’ recent musings on arming Ukraine are on target) nor expand their Mideast role beyond Syria. Our own intelligence warfare capabilities have to be upgraded.

In the current political climate in Washington, most are allergic to any suggestion of engaging relations with Russia. But that is to our detriment. Although the grievances regarding Moscow’s conduct are legitimate and overdue, it is not in our interests to continue closing our eyes to the fact that the safest world is one in which the U.S. and Russia are able to cooperate on a constructive agenda of engagement.